Field of Broken Dreams

I picked up baseball late for a kid.  I didn't do tee ball.  Basketball had always been more my thing.  One day during gym near the end of fifth grade year, we played softball.  I did well and really enjoyed it.  This was 1990.  I was eleven.

I dove into baseball.  I made my grandmama, Gammie, buy me a glove and a bat.  I started hitting everything I could.  When I couldn't get anyone to pitch to me, I'd toss the ball up and hit it myself.  If I hit the ball into the woods and couldn't find it, I'd hit pine cones or rocks.  If I could find someone to throw with me, I'd throw until their arm wouldn't throw any more (I was blessed with a rubber arm...one of the few benefits to having no muscle).  I'd throw against a wall or mattress.

To say I was deeply, passionately in love with baseball would be an understatement.  I started collecting baseball cards, scouring them for statistics.  I got to the point where I had players' careers memorized and could spot errors in stats on cards.  I would sit down and watch every Cubs baseball game that would come on WGN, which back then was nearly all of them.  I developed my very first man-crush on Ryne Sandberg, the Cubbies dynamo Hall of Fame Second Baseman. 

As I didn't know anything about baseball and hadn't played, I had mom or dad or Gammie sign me up for Dixie League (gotta love the South).  I was a right handed hitting outfielder.  For that first year, I was not bad.  I had no power because I was so little, but I could hit the ball, even though I was moderately terrified of it.  In homage to the Steroid Twins, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, then starring for the Oakland As, a fellow teammate and myself christened ourselves "The Brothers of Bomb" even though we struggled to hit doubles in the gap.

I wasn't able to play the next year because of family strife, which infuriated me.  My parents and the custody case didn't seem to care that I wanted to play baseball, dammit.  I had to make do with having my best friend play home run derby with me over at the local tennis court. Thus it was that when I finally got to play in a league again, after seventh grade, I'd only had one summer of playing in a league.  I'd moved up to the next league because of my birthday, but I was one of the younger kids and definitely one of the scrawniest.  I didn't play much because I was terrible compared to the older kids who'd been playing for years.  When I got to play, it was as a pinch runner.  Seventh grade, 1992, was the last year of my life that anyone considered me fast.  I did manage to get one hit, out of a handful of at bats, when I blooped a ball over 1B Jimmy Sahn's head (he went to the same school I did).

Now, if my parents had understood or cared about baseball, they would have tried to make sure that I played as much as possible.  Alas, they couldn't be bothered.  Instead, as I'd been trained from birth to go for the best even if, literally, out of my league, when it turned out the small private school I went to was allowing middle schoolers to try out for the undermanned Varsity Team, I went for it.

Now, when I said I stunk as a 7th grader, that was because I hit a big growth spurt and lost what strength I had (basketball that year was a wash too).  I was still pretty freakishly coordinated though and taught myself how to switch hit.  Still, I hadn't played daily since the end of fifth grade.

Somehow, I made the Varsity team.  As I mentioned, we were woefully undermanned, so I was one of three 8th graders and even a 7th grader who made it (that 7th grader, Scott Howell, ended up playing in college).  I was mainly pumped because I knew that making the Varsity as an 8th grader meant I was well on my way to Cooperstown, regardless of the fact that my main job was keeping the scorebook (they noticed I was batty about stats).  Three or four times during the course of the year, they let me play outfield if we were being blown out.  I was happier than a pig in poop.

One of the games where I got to play was against my big cousin Dave's school, Hammond.  Dave was a senior and played outfield.  Hammond was much, much better than us.  They had a first baseman who hit the ball so far that he basically walked around the bases (no fence at our field).  They scored a bajillion runs against us.  They also were no-hitting us.  The closest we came to getting a hit was when someone hit a line drive to Dave and he tripped and fell on his face, the ball flying past him for a two or three base error.

As we were being absolutely annihilated, the coach found pity on me and put me in the game.  I was even going to get an at-bat!  I'd been practicing and practicing hitting left-handed.  This was going to be my debut.  Unfortunately for their pitcher, even though he was throwing the no-hitter, they had taken so long hitting and scoring those bajillion runs that his arm had tightened up.  They had to bring in a reliever.  A lefty.  I had to bat righty.

Since hardly anyone throws lefty, I really didn't practice batting right handed.  My big chance, in front of Dave and my aunt and uncle [my dad didn't waste his time going to my games since a) he didn't care and b) I was mired on the bench] and I'd have to hit righty against a high school kid.  Dangit.

I guess my pathetic frame and the fact the bat was nearly bigger than me didn't intimidate the lefty.  He pumped a fastball down the middle.  I'm not sure I knew what happened, if I even saw the ball or realized I swung, but *PING* I made contact.  I was fairly well amazed, so I put my head down and ran like hell for first base.  No throw!  I'd hit it to the outfield! A single! I'd broken up a high school no-hitter!

I got wiped off the bases by a double play and that was the end of the game.  I was beaming.  We'd been rotating any and everyone through right field, except for me, and I was the first one of the young'uns to get a hit.  I just knew I'd be getting a start!  The coach was pretty ticked about being one-hit though and he probably made us do sprints.  Whatever, I was finally gonna play!

As I walked home (the field was nearby) visions of starting for the rest of the season and the next four years flashed through my head.  I was well on my way to being drafted.  Sure, I was skinny then, but that would change.  I would fill out.  I could already make contact; it would just be a matter of hitting with authority.  I could hear the crowd at Wrigley calling my name.

The next morning, I scoured the newspaper for the box score of our game that always got published.  I wanted to see my achievement in print.  Nothing.  Wasn't in there.  Later that day, I stopped by the coach's office and asked him.  "I'm not putting the fact we got blown out in the newspaper, kid."

I'm not sure if I pissed him off asking about it, or, more likely, I just wasn't good enough, but I did not play again.  I sat on the bench as the other two eighth graders and even the seventh grader got to try to play right field.

Another custody case emerged, and I was off to a new town, so I didn't play in Dixie League again.  Ninth grade was at a much larger public school so I only made the JV and because I was pressing so hard to show I was a future major leaguer and I hit another damn growth spurt, I sucked again and was on the bench. Even so, I tried out and made the American Legion team as the only freshman.  Of course I rode the bench.  As a sophomore, I made the varsity and looked like I was going to start, but then I put too much pressure on myself since I was finally on my path to stardom and slumped my way to the bench.  Same deal with junior year.  Finally, senior year, I filled out some and was an honorable mention for All Region.

When I got to college, I finally finished filling out and could hit the ball a mile, but it was too late.  Even though I knew there was no way I'd make the team, I tried out for USC during their yearly walk-on tryout.  Each year, I'd get a hit during the scrimmage when their pitchers would throw to get some work in.  Each year it was the same thing.  I'd hit a 90mph+ pitch and one of the coaches would say "Great job, Carpenter.  See you next year."

By my last year, while I could hit, I hadn't touched a glove in four years and was pretty much worthless on defense.  The coaches playfully asked, "This going to be the year Carpenter?  Gonna hit a homer?"

Nope, no homer.  Yet another line drive up the middle and a sloth-like jog to first base. 

Then it was off to the Army and then to war. Then to law school.  Then out here to Afghanistan.

I've done many things in my life, none of which I've particularly felt passionate about.  The only thing I've ever wanted to do with every ounce of my being was be a baseball player.  That, clearly, was not in the cards.

Still, for 1993, I led the team, league, state, country, planet, galaxy and universe in batting.

So take that, life.

Yeah, I'm wearing Ryno's #23